


Alternate Star Trek Enterprise

by garrowolf



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garrowolf/pseuds/garrowolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an alternate universe of Star Trek Enterprise based on a different technological progression. Some technologies are more advanced and some are much less advanced. This ship uses a Hyperdrive, has shields, more advanced medical tech, and power armor. I wanted to show that the essence of the setting is not dependent on Warp Drive, Replicators, or Transporters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1: Broken Bow

**Star Trek Enterprise**

**Alternate Universe**

**Broken Bow**

  
  


**Overview**

This is an alternate universe from standard Star Trek with a different Tech Level progression. Hyperdrive is available but Warp Drive is not yet developed. We have been in space much longer but mostly near Earth. Since we have been in space much longer some of the technologies are different so there are little changes all over. The medical tech is better and the doctors don't stop just because they don't get a heart beat. They can bring someone back as long as they have most of the parts and the brain isn't too damaged. Power armor and robots are common as well. Force fields have been developed.

There are no Transporters or replicators. That is set as a much higher tech now. Having replicators means that there is no reason to deliver anything or have supply ships or do a lot of things that makes a science fiction setting interesting. It also means that there are no easy escapes and no need to make the transporter break down all the time.

This is mostly based on the crew from Star Trek Enterprise but there are some changes. For one Star Trek seems to not understand the a First Officer is a job by itself and is not just who is next in command. The idea that Starfleet would forget to assign one makes no sense so I have an actual First Officer already there. Secondly there are fewer Ensigns in my AU. A ship that is the first of it's kind is going to have a lot of people wanting a position on it. They would tend to be overqualified. Sticking some ensigns on there when higher rank personnel want the position makes no sense.

Next the idea that Tactical and Security would be handled by the same person is flawed. If they are in combat and are boarded then you don't need to split the attention of the tactical officer. Plus they require a completely different skill set.

Then there is the matter of Bridge stations. I changed around who does what to some degree. Helm is still forward from the Captain's chair. It handles ship maneuvering and firing forward weapons like Sulu used to. To the right of Helm is Tactical/Short Range Navigation. When they are not in combat Tactical lays in courses for the Helm and they generally have to work closely together. Short Range Navigation covers course corrections based on the sensors. To the Captain's right is Operations. This replaces Engineering. This is a bridge position and it covers system management, damage control, and access control. The Chief Engineer should not be on the bridge. He has enough to do in main engineering. The First Officer has a seat next to Operations and on the Captain's right. Counter Clockwise from Helm is Communications, then Sciences. Sciences handles the long range sensors and long range navigation based on charts mostly.

The other major change is that there is a standard Away Team. It never made sense why they would send their department heads into very dangerous encounters. It works like an SG team.

The Enterprise is the first of a new Kepler class with a primary and secondary hull. Overall it looks like a flattened Excelsior Class with a large shuttle bay. Instead of Warp Nacelles this ship has Gravitic Field Nacelles. They are more rectangular but they have heavy engines at the end and are the main thrusters for the ship. The thickness of the engines connect directly to the secondary hull with no support pylons. The front of the engines are connected to the back of the primary hull. What would be a Navigational Deflector in the standard Star Trek universe is a Hyperdrive Jump Point Generator in this one, but they basically look the same.

**Major Crew**

**Captain (Captain)** – **Johnathan Archer** – Explorer, dreamer

**First Officer/Away Team Commander (Commander)** – **Kendall Mathis** \- Responsible for away team operations.

**Chief Engineer (Lt Commander)** – **Charles Tucker –** He is responsible for the condition of the ship.

**Chief Medical Officer** **(Lt Commander)** – **Dr. Philox** – He is in charge of the doctors and nurses for the ship.

**Science Officer (Lt Commander)** – **Tipol** – She is responsible for the science department and long range sensors. She has a field rank of Lt Comm.

**Communications (Lt)** – **Hoshi Sato** \- She covers communications on the ship and with other ships. She is a trained linguist.

**Deck Officer (Lt)** – **Jean Paul Totten** – He is in charge of shuttle and fighter launches and landings. Expert with Drone hardware.

**Helm (Lt)** – **Travis Mayweather** \- He is in charge of the ship's movement and firing forward weapons.

**Operations (Lt)** – **Micheal Rostov** \- This is a bridge position and it covers system management, damage control, and access control.

**Quartermaster (Lt)** – **Philip Nolan** – He assigns quarters and manages the ship's stores.

**Security Chief (Lt)** – **James Hayes** – He is in charge of security on the ship. Wears power armor a lot. So does ship's security.

**Tactical Officer (Lt)** – **Malcolm Reed** \- He is in charge of the ships weapon system, targeting, firing secondary weapon systems, and short range navigation.

**Xenobiologist (Lt)** – **Elizabeth Cutler** \- She covers alien biologies and is a field medic. She is commonly on away teams.

**Xenosociologist (Lt)** – **Steven Harper** \- He functions as a diplomat and studies alien cultures. He is the secondary linguist and is usually with the away team.

This is an alternate version of the first episode of Star Trek Enterprise "Broken Bow." It includes parts of scenes that were seen and some scenes from other points of view. I moved some dialogue around to other characters or simply different times. If I didn't show the scene in here then assume it is basically the same as what happened in the episode.

**Mars Orbit Spacedock**

The USS Enterprise is floating in space dock in orbit over Mars. Hundreds of other ships move about various space stations carrying supplies and personnel to the Main Belt and back toward Earth. Most of the ships are long and boxy looking but the Enterprise is new and much more sleek.

Trip and the Captain are in a shuttlepod checking out the installation of the new gravitic control nacelles.

"How long till they are finished?" said Archer.

"Well the nacelles are finished. We just need three more days till the space trails to tune the balance on the inertial compensators and get all the minor housekeeping details done such as the painting on the nacelles." said Trip.

"Make sure that they get the colors right."

"Are you going to sit out on the hull and pose for pictures?" Trip teased.

"Maybe," said Archer. "Let's take a look at the lateral sensor array."

"Give me a second," Trip steered the shuttlepod over towards the primary hull. "Any news about a new Science Officer?"

"Not yet, I'm still waiting on Starfleet. It's going to be hard to find someone as qualified as Professor Brookes." said Archer.

"Hard way to go," said Trip.

Archer pointed, "Slow down. There, those are the RCS thruster ports that buckled during the last test. They need to be reinforced."

Tucker holds his hand out and a hologram of a tablet appears in his hand. He makes a note on a tablet.

"Watch out!" said Archer as the shuttlepod nearly hits the ship but comes to a stop right beside it.

"Don't worry, the autopilot won't let me hit things out here unless I override it. You're getting a little jumpy Captain?" Trip grins.

"You could have scratched the paint." Archer smiles back.

A beep signals an incoming communication. "Shuttlepod Six." A voice comes from over the comm system, "This is space dock control for Captain Archer."  
Archer said, "Go ahead."

"Admiral Forrest needs to see you at Starfleet Medical right away."

Trip looks at Archer and shrugs.

"On my way." said Archer

Trip pilots the shuttlepod over to the space dock.

Archer goes to Starfleet Medical and gets his assignment. He also meets Dr. Philox and T'Pol.

**Enterprise Cargo Bay the next day**

Lt. Travis Mayweather and Lt. Malcolm Reed come into the cargo bay. It is a large space with cargo containers all over and the shuttle bay aft of that.

"Is it me, or does the artificial gravity seem a bit heavy?" said Travis.

Reed frowns, "Feels all right. Earth sea level." They get in line to see the Quartermaster who is talking with the Deck Officer and a crewman.

"My father always kept it at point eight G. He thought it put a little spring in his step." Travis grins.

"After being raised on cargo ships, it must've felt like you had lead in your boots when you got to Earth." said Reed.

Travis looks aft towards one of the shuttles coming in, "I hear that the Gravitic Shunts on the Enterprise go up to 40 with the new nacelles."

"That is what they say." said Reed.

"40 percent of the speed of light!" said Travis. "Think about that. With the new Delta Class Hyperdrive we will be able to go 4,000 times the speed of light!"

"Relative to normal space," Reed corrected.

"Relative to normal space," Travis agreed. The crewman and deck officer leave and the Quartermaster turns to them.

Reed said, "Lt. Nolan, this is Lt. Mayweather. He just arrived."

"Our space boomer!" said Nolan. "I heard that you have been to Trillius Prime."

Travis nodded. "It took the fourth, fifth and sixth grades to get there. I've also been to Draylax and both the Denebian moons."

Reed said, "I've only been to one inhabited planet besides Earth. Nothing there but dust-dwelling ticks."

Nolan said, "I've heard the women on Draylax have..."

"Three; It's True." said Travis.

"You know that first-hand?" said Nolan.

"First-hand, second-hand, third-hand." Travis said grinning.

Reed said, "I guess growing up a boomer has its advantages."

Nolan said, "Well let's get you squared away." He holds his hand and a hologram of a tablet appears and he pressed a few times on it. "It looks like you are on deck 3 room 322. Log in once you get up there. When you come back down and get your uniforms just tell me if there is anything that you are missing. With our launch time pushed up get your requests in quickly." He looked over to Lt. Reed. "Did you need something too or are you just acting as guide?"

"Did anything come in for me? I was supposed to have some plasma coils two days ago. " said Reed.

Nolan looks down at his tablet again and taps it a few times, "I have your cargo right over here." He moves over to a stack of crates and points to the top one then wanders off.

Travis and Reed pull it down and open it up.

Reed pulls out some containers with disgust, "This is ridiculous. I asked for plasma coils and they sent me a case of valve sealant. There's no chance I can have these weapons online in three days. "

Travis said, "We're just taking a sick man back to his home world. Why do we need weapons?"

"Didn't you read the profile report on these Klingons?" said Reed. Travis nodded no. "Apparently, they sharpen their teeth before they go into battle. "

At first Travis thinks he's joking but then looks worried when the punchline never comes.

**Enterprise Bridge**

The Enterprise bridge is in the center of the primary hull. Commander Kendall Mathis is standing beside the Operations station which is to the right of the Captain's chair. Lt. Micheal Rostov is at operations working. "Okay I'm diverting a trickle to that conduit. What do you have?"

Mathis said, "It looks like the transfer is holding. Bring it up to a quarter pressure."

"One quarter pressure coming up." said Rostov. Alarms come on. "Damn it!"

"Cut it!" said Mathis but Rostov already shut it down. Mathis touched a button on what looked like a watch. "Mathis to Sweeney. Are you alright down there?"

A voice came over the comm, "Yeah we're fine. It blew out one junction back. Give me a minute to see how much damage it did."

"Well that was fun." said Rostov. Mathis and Rostov looked up as an attractive Vulcan woman came on to the bridge. She took in the bridge with a glance and walked over to Commander Mathis holding out a datachip for him.

"This confirms that I was formally transferred to the Enterprise at oh eight hundred hours. Reporting for duty." said T'Pol.

Mathis opened his hand with the datachip in it and a holographic tablet appeared which automatically linked to the datachip. He looked it over, "Vulcan Science Academy, Science Directorate, served aboard the cruiser _Seleya_ for a year under the command of Captain Voris, I've heard of him, impressive. I see that you have the rank of Sub Commander, that would make you the equivalent of a Lt. Commander here. You will be our Science Officer for now. Your station is over there. Just check in with the Captain first and will contact the quartermaster to get your belongs stowed in your quarters."

Mathis handed the chip back to her, "Thank you" T'Pol said. "Where may I find Captain Archer now?"

Mathis nodded his head towards the Captain's ready room. "He's in there with Commander Tucker."

T'Pol nodded, went over to the door, and went inside.

"I'm sure that will go swimmingly with how much the Captain loves Vulcans." said Rostov.

Mathis just grunted.

**Two days later**

The bridge crew filed on to the bridge after their part of the ceremony was finished. They found their stations and prepared to launch.

"Engines coming on line to standby. Gravitic compensators are ready." said Rostov.

"Space dock signals clear. All umbilicals are offline. Mars Traffic Control has cleared our path and says Bon Voyage" said Hoshi.

"Umbilicals are clear." said Rostov. "All thrusters are available."

"Take her out, Mister Mayweather. Straight and steady." said Archer grinning from the Captain's chair. The Enterprise glided out of space dock with several craft on either side of it's flight path to see it off.

Reed said, "Setting course for the edge of the solar gravity interference."

"Course laid in, permission to get underway." said Travis.

"Your course is off by point two degrees starboard of the most efficient path." said T'Pol.

Archer grins and says, "Thank you. Bring us up to 20 percent. Let's she how she does. "

"Accelerating to 5... 10...15...20, sir" said Travis.

"We will be clear of the solar interference in 2 minutes." said Reed.

Archer pressed a button on his chair, "Captain to Trip. How are we doing?"

"Ready when you are." said Trip.

Archer said, "Charge the Jump Point generator."

"Charging" said Rostov.

Mathis leaned towards Rostov, "How is the power curve looking?"

"It is charging smoothly this time. No feed back with the compensator field." sad Rostov.

Mathis looked over at Archer, "Maybe we won't blow ourselves up." Archer nodded back.

Reed said, "We are free and clear to navigate. No objects within 50,000 kilometers."

"All stop." said Archer.

Travis released the inertia charge from the gravitic shunts in a flash of blue light around the nacelles. Suddenly the field around the ship that allowed the ship to move without inertia collapsed and the ship came to a sudden stop with out any motion being transferred to the crew. "Answering all stop." said Travis.

"Generator fully charged for Delta band entry." said Rostov.

Archer took a breath, "Initiate Jump Point!"

A heavy beam of gravitons fired from what would be the navigational deflector on a ship in another universe. It twisted space and forced a wormhole to open from this dimension through to the fourth level of hyperspace. Each level of hyperspace is contiguous with this dimension but each level is effectively compressed ten times the previous. So if you jump into the first level of hyperspace, the Alpha band, then travel 1 km and jump back out the you will have traveled 10 km in this universe. Beta band is 100 times, Gamma is 1000 times, and Delta is 10,000 times.

Archer looked over to T'Pol, "Scan it."

T'Pol consulted her sensors. "Scans of the band through the jump point conform to what you call the Delta band of Hyperspace."

Everyone let out a sigh of relief. Archer said, "Excellent! Enter the jump point."

"Aye sir!" said Travis and the Enterprise slid through the wormhole into hyperspace.

Mathis said, "Remember when we had to go through each band to get to the next one?"

Archer grunted.

T'Pol said, "Why would that be necessary?"

"We were fairly new at this and we were being very careful. Plus our jump point generators had a hard time maintaining a stable wormhole through more then one band." said Mathis.

"This one isn't all that stable either." said T'Pol.

"You should have seen our earlier attempts." said Reed. "We had to fire off a small antimatter missile first and then hit the explosion with a graviton beam."

"I have seen that. That was the method Humans were using when we first detected your activities." said T'Pol.

"I bet that made a hell of a flare!" said Travis.

"So what do we have in the area?" said Archer.

Reed and Travis checked their short and medium ranged sensors. T'Pol focused on long and extreme range.

Reed said, "No ships or activities in the area. I get a clean return off the Delta band Hyperspace Buoy and the new monitoring net. Nothing else can get this far in at this point."

"Alright set course for Kronos." said Archer.

T'Pol set a course through Hyperspace and transferred it to Helm.

"Course set." said Travis.

"Bring us up to 35 and keep it there. We will test it out all the way up to 40 once we come back from this mission." said Archer.

**Another Two Days Later**

It is the night shift. Mathis is on watch on the bridge, Lt. Elizabeth Cutler is on the Science station, Lt. Steven Harper is on communications, Ensign James Metcalf is on Helm, Lt. Reed is on Tactical, and Lt. Rostov is on Operations.

Reed said, "What is that?"

"What is what Lieutenant?" said Mathis.

"Sir, I just saw a flicker off the port side" said Reed.

"We've got a fluctuation in the Inertial Field." said Rostov.

"Could that be causing the flicker on the sensors?" said Mathis.

"No sir, according to this we have a change in mass by several hundred kilograms." said Rostov.

Cutler said, "Could we have pulled in an asteroid to our field?"

"In Hyperspace? There shouldn't be any asteroids in hyperspace." said Reed. "Besides modern field containment shouldn't allow that even in normal space."

"I think that we have an intruder!" said Rostov.

"What!?" said Cutler.

"I can't connect with the port airlock anymore. I think that we have a cloaked ship docked with us." said Rostov.

"Intruder Alert!" said Mathis. An alarm started sounding.

"We've been hacked! said Rostov. "I've got no control over security systems."

"Communications are down!" said Harper.

"We've got power fluctuations all over! Engines are going down. Gravitic Shunt is dumping." said Rostov. The Enterprise comes to a stop in hyperspace.

"I've got no helm control!" said Metcalf.

"Did the Intruder Alert get out to the rest of the ship?" said Mathis.

"I don't think so but I'm not sure." said Rostov.

Mathis touches his comm watch. "Bridge to Security. Come in." He waits for a moment. "Bridge to Security. Can anyone hear me? Respond."

"I think that we are being jammed sir" said Harper. "I'm picking up feedback on all channels. No one should be able to jam our communications but they are. I've never seen anything like it."

"I'm going to go down there. Reed you are in command until I get back. Rostov come with me." said Mathis. He went over to a panel in the back of the bridge and go out a vest for Rostov and handed it to him. Then he put on his own vest. Then he pressed a series of controls on the chest and the armor deployed along the commander's body into a fully functional space suit and minor power armor. Rostov did the same and checked his HUD for suit status.

Then went to the bridge door at the aft of the bridge. It didn't open. "These doors should have independent power." said Mathis. He pointed to the panel on the side of the door. "Release the manual lock"

Rostov opened the panel and rotated a bar counterclockwise. The door opened slightly. Then Mathis forced it open.

Lights were off in the corridor ahead. Rostov scanned. "We've got some kind of interference that is suppressing the electrical systems. Our suits are shielded for heavy EM and Radiation but I don't know if they will function long in this." said Rostov.

Mathis deployed a laser on his left shoulder and tuned it to act as a heavy light source. Rostov saw him do that and did the same. They moved forward.

"I think that the source of the interference is moving around. If I could correlate with several sensors and what areas they are blind in I think I could triangulate them." said Rostov.

As Mathis was walking he thought that he saw something out of the corner of his eye to his left. He spun and brought up a hand with a laser built in. Something moved out of sight around a corner. Mathis then reached up on his vest and pulled off a small disk and slid it down the hallway. It was supposed to pop up and act as a sensor drone but it didn't.

"Damn it!" Mathis said quietly. "I was hoping that was shielded enough." They started moving down the corridor carefully towards where they had seen the movement.

"How do we know that our weapons will work?" said Rostov.

"We may have to punch it, what ever IT is." said Mathis.

"Hope it has a soft skull" said Rostov. They came around the corner but it was already gone.

They moved up and encountered a couple of crewmen unconscious. They checked them and continued.

Then they heard noise ahead. Two strange looking aliens in some sort of bioarmor forced their way past them and knocked them over. One of them was carrying the Klingon over his shoulder. They sprinted down back they way that they came. When they went by their HUDs and lights went off and they couldn't hear anything anymore but their own breathing.

Two security personnel were charging after them with their helmet's open. They were yelling but Rostov and Mathis couldn't hear anything.

Rostov said, "Oh Crap!" and slapped at the manual release seal on his helmet when he realized that his life support system was off in the suit. Mathis did the same but a bit more calmly. They got up and started after the intruders. They were now running in the dark. They could see some flashes up ahead of some soft of beam weapon but it didn't sound like a plasma pistol or a laser. Apparently the aliens were not hindered.

They came around a corner and found one of the security laying obviously dead in the middle of the corridor. The other one was taking cover around a corner signaling them with his hands to stay back. Then there was a clank of a hatch closing. Mathis and the guard ran forward to the airlock and started shoving it closed. They almost got it closed when the alien ship disengaged and Rostov and the dead guard were sucked out.

Rostov's Starfleet training kicked in, however, and instead of trying to stop himself he reached up and closed the helmet again. The interference field left with the aliens and his life support came back on as he spun in space. He signaled the suit to stop his spin and turned back towards the Enterprise. He couldn't see the alien ship so it must have been cloaked. He saw lights come back on all over the ship.

Mathis' voice came over the comm system on his suit, "Mathis to Rostov, you okay out there?"

"Yes sir, I got my helmet up in time." said Rostov.

"I saw that on your way past. Were you just needing a moment to yourself?" said Mathis.

"Now that you mention it maybe I will hang out here for a while." said Rostov.

"So if they are still hanging around out there cloaked...?" said Mathis.

"On may way to the airlock sir!" said Rostov sounding alarmed.

"Belay that. There may be damage to this lock. Go back to one of the airlocks on the secondary hull." said Mathis.

"Yes sir." said Rostov, wondering if they were still out there watching him right now. Hopefully the Klingon was all that they were interested in and they didn't want to start exploring Human anatomy.

Mathis came back onto the bridge with Captain Archer already there and he looked pissed. "We've got state of the art sensors. Why the hell didn't we detect them before they got on board the ship?" said Archer.

Harper said "Mister Reed detected something right before we lost access. "

"They had an advanced stealth system." said Reed.

"Some how they were able to alter our gravitic control field to allow them to connect to us while in motion." said Trip.

"They also had some kind of EM jamming that we've never seen before." said Mathis. "They were able to negate all of our weapons and systems as they walked around. We lost crewman Jackson."

"Damn it! We lost Shing in sickbay when they attacked." said Archer. "What kind of armor were they wearing?"

Mathis said, "I think it was some kind of biological power armor. It seemed kind of organic. That could be why they were immune to their own jamming."

"I want a complete analysis of that jamming they used. I don't want to get caught like that again." said Archer. "Can we track them some how?"

"We could try and detect their plasma trail." said Trip. "Even under stealth a ship has to move around some how."

"Okay see if you can tune our sensors to pick it up." said Archer. He turned to Malcolm, "Where do we stand on weapons?"

Reed said," I still have to tune the targeting scanners."

"What are you waiting for?" said Archer.

T'Pol said, "Captain."

Archer ignored her and turned to Hoshi, "The Klingon seemed to know who they were. See if you can translate what he said."

"Right away." said Hoshi

"Captain! There's no way you could have anticipated this. I'm sure Ambassador Soval will understand." said T'Pol.

Archer turned towards her, "You're the Science Officer. Why don't you help Trip with that analysis?"

"The astrometric computer in San Francisco will be far more effective." said T'Pol.

Archer said, "We're not going to San Francisco, so make do with what we've got here. "

"You've lost the Klingon. Your mission is over." said T'Pol.

"I didn't lose the Klingon. He was taken, and I'm going to find out who took him!" said Archer.

T'Pol said, "How do you plan to do that? Space is very big, Captain. A shadow on your sensors won't help you find them. This is a foolish mission. "

Archer crooked his finger and said, "Come with me. " and went into his ready room. T'Pol followed.

The rest of the bridge was quiet. Mathis moved forward to the back of the captain's chair. Rostov was still on his way back up from the secondary hull airlock. "Mister Reed, go through our sensor logs and see what you can tell us about their stealth systems."

Cutler, Rostov, and Hayes came on the bridge from the turbolift. Trip got into the lift but held it when he saw T'Pol come back out of the Captain's ready room and marched across the bridge. Then they left. Hayes went to the ready room and went inside.

Mathis turned to Rostov. "Damage report."

Rostov looked over at Metcalf with wide eyes and Metcalf mouthed, "Tell you later." Then Rostov started his diagnostics.

Mathis sat there for a moment, "So what can we do to prevent that from happening again?"

"Chemical lighting!" said Cutler, a little louder then she intended. Mathis looked over at her. She continued, "There is a few compounds that we can run a mild electrical charge through most of the time and it would just store that as chemical energy and only shine when the charge is gone. That way we would still have lights at least if they come back."

"Good thinking lieutenant, we can set that up on the main corridors first and work our way from there." said Mathis. "What else?"

Reed turned, "Plasma rounds."

Mathis nodded negatively, "The jamming was interfering with our weapons."

"No not plasma pistols, plasma rounds fired from a slug thrower." said Reed. "That is all chemical and mechanical. They can't jam that!"

"Do we have any slug throwers on board?" said Harper.

"We can have Nolan manufacture some easily enough." said Rostov.

Just then the captain and Hayes came back on the bridge. Mathis turned to him. "We've got a few ideas here that could be useful."

"What is it?" said Archer.

"Cutler had a great idea for chemical light along the corridors. That way we won't be fighting in the dark next time." said Mathis.

"Sounds good." Archer nodded to Cutler and moved to his chair.

"Reed had a good idea about slug throwers." said Mathis.

Archer turned to Reed. "What about them?"

"Well sir if we manufacture some slug throwers and some plasma rounds they would still have a hell of a punch but they won't be able to jam it." said Reed.

Archer turned to Hayes. Hayes said, "That could very well work. I would need to have my people practice with them and we would need to work out how much plasma we want to generate but it should be a nasty surprise." Hayes grinned.

"Captain" said Hoshi. Archer said, "Do it" to Hayes. "Good work" to Reed and continued around to Hoshi. "Go."

"I got a call from Dr. Philox. He has identified the body of the intruder as a Suliban. He wants to show you something about it." said Hoshi.

"Tell him I'm on my way." said Archer getting up. He turned to Mathis, "Get to work on both of those ideas." Then he entered the turbolift.

"I've got that damage report you asked for Commander." said Rostov.

Mathis moved to sit down and said, "Go ahead."

"We've got plasma conduit damage on deck 5 from the fire fight. The port side airlock on deck 5 was damaged. We also have some feedback damage to one of the compensator coils." said Rostov.

"Will the compensator coil damage prevent us from moving?" said Mathis

"No sir. We have enough redundancy for a third of them to be down and we can still move. It would limit our top speed just a bit but since the captain doesn't want to max us out just yet we wont have any problems anyway." said Rostov.

"Okay get damage control teams working on repairing the plasma conduits and the airlock first. We can deal with the coil damage later." said Mathis. He turned to Cutler, "Send a plan to Trip to confirm and a list of things that you need to Nolan. We will get the damage control teams starting on that as soon as they finish."

"Commander," said Hoshi. "I've got a translation of everything that the Klingon said. There are some words not in the linguistic database, probably proper nouns. Mind if I give this to the Captain?"

"Go ahead." said Mathis. He turned to see Reed and Hayes talking quietly. "You two." said Mathis. They looked up." Go ahead down to the Quartermaster and get those guns worked out."

"Yes sir" said Reed and Hayes and they left.

After a few minutes of quiet Travis came on to the bridge. "Did I miss anything? What was going on with the lights?"

The rest of the bridge started laughing. Then there was a beep at the helm. Travis looked around baffled and then pressed the button as he sat down. "Mayweather."

The captain's voice came over the speaker, "Go into the Vulcan star charts and find a system called Rigel, then set a course for the tenth planet."

"Yes, sir." said Travis.

**4 hours later in the Enterprise Launch Bay**

Mathis, Archer, T'Pol, Cutler, Harper, Hayes, Nolan, and the Deck Officer Totten are standing in the equipment room beside the Launch Bay. Mathis, Cutler, Harper, and Hayes are suiting up in space armor.

Nolan starts handing out automatic pistols and plasma pistols with an extra holster. "These are mechanical pistols so there is a possibility of jamming. Pull the slide like this to clear the round, sight down the barrel to make sure it is clear, and release it. There are ten rounds in each clip and it will have a bit of a kick so watch out."

Hayes said, "I wish that we had more time for practice with these before we go down there." Nolan handed Hayes a pistol and a bullpup submachine gun. "This will be fun."

Archer said, "The trade complex has thirty-six levels. Hopefully security will have a record of them."

T'Pol said, "Your translators have been programmed for Rigelian. However, you'll encounter numerous other species. Many of them are known to be impatient with newcomers. None of them have seen a human before. You have a tendency to be gregarious. I suggest you try to restrain that tendency. "

Cutler said, "You forgot to warn us about drinking the water."

T'Pol said, "Doctor Phlox didn't mention food and water, but he does caution against intimate contact." Cutler raises her eyebrows at that.

Archer said, "The Vulcans told us Klaang was a courier. If he was there to get something, then whoever gave it to him might know why he was taken. It was only a few days ago. A seven foot Klingon doesn't go unnoticed. Good Luck." he shook hands with Mathis. "I wish I was going down there with you."

"You and me both." Mathis smiles. Mathis and the rest of the away team entered the shuttlecraft. Instead of being parked on a deck the shuttlecraft are actually sitting between and outer and inner hull in the secondary hull facing outward. The rear hatch opens along with an inner door that is a part of the Enterprise. The shuttlecraft has four seats forward, a hatch, equipment lockers and two benches along the side and another hatch at the end. They entered through the rear hatch, stow their equipment, and sit down. Mathis takes the pilot seat and Harper takes the co-pilot seat.

Mathis touches a few buttons and the shuttlecraft comes to life. The rear doors close and the outer doors in front of the shuttlecraft open. Instruments register a good seal in the shuttle.

Mathis touches the comm system and said, "Shuttlecraft Von Braun to Enterprise Shuttle Bay. We are ready to depart."

Clamps release from the shuttlecraft. Totten responds over the comm, "You are clear for launch Von Braun. Happy Hunting."

Mathis guided the shuttlecraft out of it's bay and the outer doors on bay closed. Von Braun decends towards Rigel 10 and into a blizzard around the Trade Complex.

**Later in the Rigelian Docking Control Center**

The tall green Rigelian dock master call Krin said, "Five or six days ago? Do you realize how much traffic we process in a single day?" The translation blocked out what he was actually saying and replacing the audio.

"This was a one man Klingon scout ship." said Mathis. His translator replicated his voice but spoke Rigelian instead.

"What species are you?" asked Krin again distractedly.

Mathis repeated, "Humans. We're called humans. "

An alarm went off. The dock master went over to a panel and checked it. "Elkan nine, raise your approach vector by point two radiants." the Regellian said into a comm system. He looked up at Mathis and then checked a different panel. "It was seven days ago. A scout vessel."

"Does it say who he was here to see?" said Mathis.

Krin said, "What is says is that he arrived at docking port six and was given a level one biohazard clearance."

Mathis said, "You don't seem to be very interested in what people do here."

"Our visitors value their privacy. It wouldn't be very tusoropko tuprova pro the business they're in." said Krin.

Mathis looked confused over to Cutler who was checking a holographic pad. Then she nodded, "It's all right. Rigelian uses a pronominal base. The translator's just reprocessing the syntax. Try now."

Mathis said back to the dock master, "Do you have any records of a Suliban vessel coming in around the same time?"

"Suliban. I don't know that word. Your device must still be malfunctioning. " said Krin.

Mathis looks annoyed and then tries a different track, "Have you ever heard of a Klingon?"

"Of course! Powerful people, good customers!" said Krin. "Of course they also get into trouble with security a lot."

"Do you have any records of a Klingon named Klaang? Did he get in trouble?" said Mathis.

The dock master checked, "No. We have no records of anyone being arrested or detained by that name. However you could ask some of his people if they have seen him."

"You have a lot of Klingons here?" said Mathis.

"Some. There is an enclave on level 19 of Klingons, in the easternmost subsection, by the geothermal shafts. They like the live food down there." He said with a grin.

Mathis looked over at Cutler and then back to the Rigelian, "Thanks"

Mathis and Cutler moved away from the desk and activated his comm, "Mathis to Hayes."

Over the comm, "Hayes here sir".

"Have you two found anything?" said Mathis.

"Rumors and butterflies" said Hayes.

Cutler was listening in and mouthed 'Butterflies?'

"We found out about an enclave on level 19 that may have some Klingons. Maybe someone saw Klaang while he was here." said Mathis.

"Can you send us the location?" said Hayes.

"Unfortunately we haven't been able to link up with the local network. We got a copy of their protocols but it may take a while for Hoshi and Rostov to set up a way for us to access their network." said Mathis.

"Maybe next time." said Hayes. "What do you have?"

"They are supposed to be on the easternmost section by some geothermal shafts. Meet us there and we will try and ask around." said Mathis.

"Roger." said Hayes.

**Later on level 19**

Cutler said, "Isn't an enclave supposed to have people?"

"Maybe the translation came across wrong." said Mathis as they walked into a largely empty underground area.

"The dock master said something about live food. I don't see any restaurants." said Cutler.

Just then they saw a group of Klingons turn a corner far down the corridor.

"Hello! Excuse me!" said Mathis "Crap it's still set to Rigelian."

Cutler adjusted hers, "Ha'quj jeg!" She looked back at Mathis. "They looked Klingon to me."

Mathis switched to his comm channel, "Mathis to Hayes. Hayes come in." No response.

"There may be some interference. We don't know their systems." said Cutler adjusting her comm. Then she looked up and around, "Or we may be being jammed. Maybe we should get back to where there are more people. " she said nervously.

Their HUDs went off. Mathis pulled out his pistol, "I think that there are plenty of people right here. " Cutler brought her own pistol up and put her back to his.

Two Suliban came out of cloak and tried to grab them. They were not wearing power armor but they clearly didn't expect them to be able to fight back.

The power armor caused a bit of resistance without power but they were still able to move. Mathis shot at the ground near their feet and the Suliban stopped surprised. "Stop where you are."

A human looking female came forward. She said something to the two Suliban and they stood back. Then she held up her hands. "We mean you no harm." she said in Rigelian.

"What do you want?" demanded Mathis.

"You're looking for Klaang. Why?" she said.

"Who are you?" said Mathis.

"My name is Sarin." she said. "Why are you looking for Klaang?"

"He was a guest aboard my ship and he was taken." said Mathis.

Sarin said, "Tell me about the people who took Klaang off your ship."

"I was hoping you could tell me. They look a lot like your friends here." Mathis pointed to the two Suliban.

"Where were you taking him?" said Sarin.

Mathis said, "Home. We were just taking him home."

"Why were you taking Klaang home?" said Sarin.

"He was injured on his way home while passing through our system. He was attacked by an unknown assailant and crashed his ship. We were taking him on to his home world to hopefully prevent a diplomatic incident." said Mathis.

Sarin looks closely at him and sniffs the air around his face. Mathis steps back a bit, weirded out by that. Then takes another step back as Sarin's skin changes to look like a Suliban. She said, "I've been given the ability to measure trust, but it requires close proximity. "

"You're a Suliban!" said Cutler.

"I was a member of the Cabal, but not any longer. The price of evolution was too high." said Sarin

Mathis said, "Evolution?"

"Some of my people are so anxious to improve themselves that they've lost perspective." said Sarin.

"So you know I'm not lying to you. Now what?" said Mathis.

Sarin took a breath, "Klaang was carrying a message to his people."

"How do you know that?" said Mathis

Sarin said "I gave it to him."

"What kind of message?" said Mathis

Sarin said, "The Suliban have been staging attacks within the Klingon Empire, making it appear that one faction is attacking another. Klaang was bringing proof of this to his High Council. Without that proof, the Empire could be thrown into chaos. "

"Why would the Suliban want that?" said Cutler

Sarin said, "The Cabal doesn't make decisions on its own. They're simply soldiers fighting a Temporal Cold War. "

"Temporal? You've lost me." said Mathis. He turned to Cutler, "Is this thing still translating correctly?"

Sarin said, "They're taking orders from the distant future."

"What?" said Cutler.

"The distant future?" said Mathis. "How..?"

Sarin said, "We can help you find Klaang but we don't have a starship. You'll have to take us with you."

Suddenly there was weapons fire. Suliban soldiers in organic power armor are fighting with Hayes and Harper. Hayes' submachine is tearing into the Suliban unexpectedly and the Suliban start actually taking cover. Mathis and Cutler join in and fire their pistols. The two Suliban with Sarin join with them and fire at the Cabal Suliban.

Sarin tries to yell over the noise, "Where is your vessel?"

Mathis moves closer behind cover, "On the roof. Docking port three."

Mathis tries him comm system and then turns to Sarin, "Can you shut off the jamming?"

Sarin looks confused, "Jamming?"

"The interference with our equipment." said Mathis, also yelling over the noise.

Sarin nods and adjusts something on her belt. Suddenly their Heads Up Display and armor power up. Mathis and Cutler switch to lasers and fire. One of the Suliban on their side goes down under laser fire.

Sarin said, "This way" and points towards an elevator.

Mathis activates his comm system, "Mathis to Away Team. Fall back to the my position."

Mathis and Cutler covered Hayes and Harper as they moved from cover to cover back to Mathis. Then they all head for the elevator. They are out flanked by another Cabal Suliban in power armor that fires on them all. The Away Team's power armor protects them but the unarmored Suliban and Sarin both go down. They concentrate fire on the Cabal Suliban and kill him.

Sarin said, "Find Klaang" and died.

Mathis picks her up and carries her with them. "Maybe Philox can bring her back."

They get into the elevator and make their way up to the ship.

**Enterprise Sick Bay**

Sarin woke up in the Medical Bay of the Enterprise. Dr. Philox was standing over her along with Lt Cutler. They both wore an ear piece with a small microphone attached. A small speaker was on their chest attached to their uniforms.

Dr. Philox said, "Greetings. How are you feeling?" translated into Rigelian.

Sarin looked around and felt her chest. There was a small discoloration on her molted skin from a scar. "I am... better. Actually I am surprised to be alive!" also in Rigelian.

"Well you took a nasty laser wound to the chest through your back but it wasn't anything that we could not fix. Plus you have some very interesting genetic modifications that helped you recover." said Dr. Philox.

"Do you have any pain or feel any dizziness?" asked Philox.

"My head hurts a bit and my knee hurts but that is all." said Sarin.

Dr. Philox starts looking at her knee when Archer, Mathis, and T'Pol enter.

"Doctor, how is the patient?" said Archer.

"She is mostly recovered. She needs some rest so don't talk too long." said Philox.

Archer turned on his translator, "My name is Captain Johnathan Archer. This is my First Officer Commander Mathis. This is my Science Officer Subcommander T'Pol"

"My name is Sarin. Thank you for saving me and bringing me aboard your vessel." said Sarin.

"Commander Mathis tells me that you can help us find the Suliban that took Klaang from us." said Archer.

"Yes, he was taken by Silik of the Cabal. They are a group of Suliban that focused on using the Temporal Cold War to make us into a powerful empire." said Sarin

"What do you mean "Temporal Cold War'?" asked Archer.

"There are factions of time travelers that are trying to change the future for their own benefit. Different factions have different species that are helping them to manipulate the past. Most of them are only able to send back information but there are rumors of some who can actually physically travel through time. These are the most dangerous and powerful of the factions." said Sarin.

T'Pol interrupted Archers next question and said in English, "The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that Time Travel is not possible. This is some sort of manipulation." Sarin looked at her confused.

Archer was annoyed by T'Pol but translated for Sarin, "Our science officer doesn't believe that time travel is possible."

Sarin looked more confused, "I thought that you would already have theories about it since so many changes have already been made to this time line."

"What changes?" said Archer.

"I'm not sure of all the details but there was a project that I was told about as a success that altered the subspace fields in this whole galaxy so that Warp Drive was harder to discover. They said that it unexpectedly opened up hyperspace more then before." said Sarin. "It was designed to change which species made it in to space early on. I thought that there would be evidence of the project left behind."

"Wait, you're saying that someone tampered with space itself to alter which species came out into space?" said Archer.

"And what is this Warp Drive you speak of?" said Mathis.

"I'm not sure which faction did it or if it was several factions. All I know is that they said that large scale changes were made far back in the past. It was spoken of as a warning of how dangerous the factions are." said Sarin.

"This is a manipulation of some sort. We should not believe her." said T'Pol in English.

"Hold on, let's deal with the immediate issue. Can you help us find Klaang?" said Archer.

"Yes, he would he held in a Helix on Surabok 8. It is the closest Helix to Rigel and Silik has authority over the Cabal there." said Sarin. "I can give you coordinates."

"We have a pad translated to Rigelian here." said Archer. T'Pol hands him a datapad which he passes to Sarin. Sarin starts working on the pad. Archer, Mathis, and T'Pol step over to the other side of the sick bay.

T'Pol says, "This is some kind of trap. The Suliban are clearly a hostile race with technology far superior to yours. This could be an attempt to take the ship."

Archer looks over at Mathis, "What do you think?"

"Well I think that she is telling the truth. She was trying to help us at first but making assumptions about an alien race is problematic. I don't know Captain. We could play it cagy and get nowhere with this." said Mathis.

Archer thinks about it. "If the Suliban have superior technology then this ship isn't that much of a prize to them in the first place. They seemed focused on getting Klaang before."

Archer said, "Let's see how this plays out.".

He stepped over to Sarin and she handed him the pad. "This is the location of Surabok 8." Archer looks at the pad and hands it to T'Pol.

Archer turned to Sarin. "Can you give us the details on that jamming system that your soldiers use?"

"I can give you one but I don't know a lot about it myself." Sarin took off her belt and handed it to Archer. She pointed at it. "This button turns it on and again for off. These are for communications. The others are for a system interface."

Archer said, "Thank you. We really appreciate your help." He passed the belt to Mathis.

"It is fine. I just want to stop the Cabal before they use us all up in their war. We were strong people before the Cabal. Now we are the servants of masters we cannot even see. My people are being used and I will not stop until we are no longer puppets." said Sarin.

**Enterprise Briefing Room 2 hours later**

The briefing room is a standard conference room with a long table along the middle of the room. There is a holographic tank above the middle of the table with the space below it open so that when they are sitting down they can see each other under it. Mathis, Sarin, and Hayes are already working on the display when Archer, T'Pol, and Reed enter.

"Okay," said Archer, "what have you got?"

Sarin touches a button and a hologram of the Suliban Helix appears. "This is the Helix in the Surbok system. It is hiding inside a gas giant. It is an aggregate structure comprised of hundreds of vessels. They're held in place by an interlocking system of magnetic seals. We can use some of the safety systems to our advantage." said Sarin. "If we send a signal to the interlock command matrix that something has deactivated the magnetic interlock system then it will automatically switch everything over to independent systems but since it isn't actually disengaged then the individual systems will still be on standby waiting on the command matrix to actually release control."

Reed said, "So you are having the systems logic chase it's tail."

Sarin and T'Pol look confused at the reference. Sarin said, "I think my translator must not have a full database."

"Don't worry about it." said Archer. "Let's focus on the mission. What is to keep them from overriding the safety protocols?"

"I am going to send it a series of commands that will tell the system that it an enemy is trying to reprogram the safety protocols to kill everyone on board and that the enemy is using the codes of the command staff. That will make it much more difficult for them to reassert control in time."

Mathis said, "So you're going to hack in and make the system think that the crew is the hacker. Nice!"

"No, I don't believe that chopping into the ship will accomplish this goal." said Sarin looking worried.

Archer looked amused, "No, don't worry about it. We understand."

T'Pol turned to Sarin, "English is full of idioms, more then most other languages."

Sarin nodded, "I understand then, you are equating making the Helix central system think it is damaged with actually damaging the ship with a hand weapon."

Reed said, "Umm..."

Archer smiled, "Yes, that is it. Exactly. So let's continue."

Sarin turned to Hayes.

Hayes said, "We can force open an airlock along the central ship once the lock-down is in place. Sarin tells me that their force fields are better then ours in that they can hold an atmosphere. We can cut through the inner doors and make our way to the prisoner fairly quickly due to the layout. We need two teams, one to grab the Klingon and one to hold the exit. Sarin says that they don't use the jamming tech on board their ships but they can if they have to so I don't want to go in with any drones or robots. However I am worried about going in there without working power armor."

Archer turned to T'Pol, "Did you figure out any way around the jamming?"

"With Sarin's help I was able to identify the frequencies involved but I still don't know how to neutralize the effect. However I think that I can shield most of the power armor's systems so that they can move and have life support at least." said T'Pol.

"Alright so how do we approach? I'm sure that they will pick us up on their sensors once we enter the system." said Archer. He turned to Sarin, "Are there any early warning systems we should worry about?"

"The whole point of the Helix is to conceal it from view. Any active sensors would give them away." said Sarin "There is a hyperspace drone that I can override once we get to the system. We can come in along the north pole of the planet and it should hide us from passive sensors until we get into the cloud layers. Then we can come around inside the planet. Once we get within short range I can send the program to confuse their systems. It should shut down their weapons systems as well. Then you should be able to send a shuttle to dock with the Helix."

Reed said, "I think that we can beat them sir!"

Sarin looked alarmed, "No! Please! Most of the crew are just following orders! Don't beat on them."

Archer said, "It's just another figure of speech. It means that we will succeed."

"I think I have a headache." Sarin looked around, "Either you will get along great with Klingons or you will war with them constantly. You are so much like them. All of their idioms are based around violence as well!"

**Enterprise Bridge 3 hours later**

Mathis brings Sarin on to the bridge.

Archer is in the command chair and turns, "Feeling better?" through the translator.

"I am. Where are we?" said Sarin.

"We have just entered the Surabok system in hyperspace. We are at long range to the Hyperspace buoy. Are you ready to send it the codes?" said Archer.

"Yes" Sarin moved over to the communications station. Hoshi stepped aside but stood where she could see everything that she did. Sarin entered several codes. She waited for a moment and there was a beep. She turned to Archer, "It perceives us a friendly. It also reports that there is no other ships in the system currently."

"Thank you." Archer turns to Travis, "Go 4 AU north of the star and jump in from there. Once we have a map of the star system we can do another jump and get closer."

"Aye sir." said Travis. He steers the Enterprise to the north pole of the star relative to the plane of the elliptic.

Mathis said, "Charge Jump Point Generator"

"Charging" said Rostov

"In position" said Travis

"Initiate jump point." said Archer. "Jump." The Enterprise jumps through to normal space.

Stars in normal space also exist in Hyperspace. However planets do not. This means that they can find a system in hyperspace but they need to take a scan of the positions of the planets in order to jump closer to a planet safely. Usually the poles of a star are the one place in a solar system without any comets or planetary bodies.

"Recharge the jump point generator" said Mathis.

"Taking scans of the planetary bodies." said T'Pol. "I have located the eighth planet. It is a class seven gas giant."

"Set a course to bring us out on the north pole of the planet. Then we can go in from there." said Archer.

"Ready to jump again." said Rostov.

"Course received" said Travis.

"Initiate jump point and bring us back in." said Archer. The Enterprise jumped back to Hyperspace. "Take us to Surabok 8 Lieutenant. Go to 35 percent."

"Aye sir." said Travis.

"How are your targeting sensors Malcolm?" said Archer.

"Aligned and ready sir." said Reed.

"Bring us to battle stations." said Archer. A red light and red alert alarm sounded.

"Bring weapons and shields online" said Mathis.

Reed said, "Weapons charging, torpedoes loading, shields charged."

"All decks report to your battle stations. Damage control teams to standby. Secure all secondary functions." said Rostov over the intercom.

"Jump point generator charged and ready." said Rostov.

"Approaching nav point. Slowing for reentry." said Travis. "In position."

Archer looked over at Rostov. Rostov said, "All decks reporting in at battle stations."

"Initiate Jump Point." said Archer. "Jump"

The Enterprise jumped back into normal space at the north pole of the gas giant.

"Have we been picked up?" said Archer looking over at T'Pol.

"I don't detect anything on passive sensors." said T'Pol.

He turned to Malcolm, "Short Range?"

"Our short range sensors are having difficulty with the interference from the radiation of the gas giant. However I have not detected anything directed at us." said Malcolm.

"Take us in to the atmosphere." said Archer. He turned to Mathis, "Go suit up."

Mathis said, "Yes sir." He touched his wrist comm and said,"Security team to shuttle bay." and left by the lift.

Enterprise dropped into the upper cloud layers of the orange Gas Giant.

"Sensor resolution is falling off at about twelve kilometers." said Reed.

Archer said, "Travis?"

"I'm okay, Captain" said Travis.  
T'Pol said, "Our situation should improve. We're about to break through the cyclohexane layer."

The ship shudders. "I wouldn't exactly call this an improvement." said Archer.  
T'Pol said, "Liquid phosphorous. I wouldn't have expected that beneath a layer of cyclohexane."  
"You might think about recommending seat belts when we get home." said Hoshi.  
Archer said, "It's just a little bad weather."

Then the Enterprise moved into a clear layer.

Reed said "We've got sensors."

Archer said, "Level off. Go to medium range passive scans. How close are we?"

Sarin said, "We should be there in another few minutes."

"I'm detecting two vessels bearing one one nine mark seven." said Reed.

"Have they seen us?" said Archer.

"It looks like it. They are changing course. Detecting sensor scans on us." said Reed.

"Can we jam them?" said Archer to Hoshi.

"I can try." said Hoshi. Sarin leaned over to help.

One of the smaller Suliban ships fired on the Enterprise.

"Damage report!" said Archer.

Rostov checks his boards, "That was a heavy hit. The shields took some of it but the rest got through. We have damage to decks 5 and 6 port side. Sending damage control teams."

"Analysis Mr Reed." said Archer.

"That was a particle weapon, sir. " said Reed.

The Enterprise was hit several more times.

"They are packing quite a wallop sir! Shields weakening" said Rostov.

"Fire Laser Cannons!" said Archer. "Can you get a lock for a Torpedo?"

"I recommend against that." said T'Pol "The atmosphere would cause a shockwave from any explosive weapons and do significant damage to us."

"Just concentrate on the lasers then Mr. Reed." said Archer.

"I'm trying but with the radiation here and their stealth systems I can't get a good lock on them." said Reed. "They are staying close to us, especially towards the secondary hull where we have fewer cannon emitters."

"Could we launch drones in this atmosphere?" said Archer.

Rostov answered, "They don't have the shielding to take the pressure. I could build one to do it but nothing we have ready would work."

T'Pol braced herself from another hit, "I told you that this was a trap. These people have superior technology to you. We should leave."

Sarin looked angrily at her and then turned to Archer. "This was not a trap! I have not deceived you!"

"I'm not going to run away scared just because the bad guys have some higher technology." said Archer. Then he thought about it for a moment. "Hey that's it! We need to go lower tech on them!" He turned to Rostov. "You know how the Gravitic Coils on the first generation Contra-gravity ships used to arc all over the place when they were used?"

"Yes, it was due to feedback in the gravity well." said Rostov.

"Can we do that here?" said Archer.

Rostov thought for a moment and nodded, "I can shut down some of the plasma channels through the compensator coils and force it to feedback outside the ship. Commander Trip is not going to like this."

"He will be ecstatic that we lived. Do it!" said Archer.

Rostov touched several buttons and warning lights came on in several places.

As the two Suliban ships passed by the nacelles suddenly the whole area was electrified and the ships shorted out and were adrift. Once their shields dropped they fell into the next layer below them and imploded.

"That did it!" said Reed.

Trip's voice came over Rostov's com panel, "What are you doing up there?"

Archer touched his own com panel, "Just some trouble with the bad guys!"

T'Pol seemed to compose herself, "I suggest we return to the phosphorous layer. We can detect any other ships from there but the reflection from below with hinder passive sensors."

Archer said "Take us up."

"Aye Sir," said Travis. After a few moments of silence, Travis said, "We are approaching the coordinates of the Helix."

Archer touched his comm panel, "Bridge to Shuttle Bay."

Tottan answered over the comm, "Shuttlebay here"

"Is everything ready Lieutenant?" said Archer.

"Yes Sir, they are loaded and awaiting your signal." said Tottan.

"Prepare to launch." said Archer. He turned to Sarin. "Tell me when we are close enough to send the program."

Sarin said, "I am picking up some communications outside of the background noise. We are almost there. I just need us to get close enough so that the programming code doesn't get lost in the static."

Reed said, "Sir, I'm picking up something at three forty two mark twelve."

"That should be the Helix." said Sarin. "Confirmed. I am sending the codes."

Archer touched his comm panel, "Launch Shuttlecraft!"

Rostov responded, "Shuttlecraft is away."

**Shuttlecraft Drake**

From the Shuttlecraft craft view-ports, they can see the Helix. It is a collection of smaller ships connected together. However there are electrical arcs coming from most of those connections. The whole complex seemed to be flexing, trying to separate itself.

"I'm going to come in over the complex so we can figure out where our Klingon is." said Mathis. He directed the shuttlecraft over the complex. "How are short range sensors?"

Hayes chuckled, "Short range sensors are about all we have in this soup. I'm picking up several lifesigns. The computer is trying to sort them out."

"Sarin said that he would probably be held near the largest single ship. That should be it then." said Mathis. He pointed at one of the ships.

"I'm getting a lot of strange readings coming from that ship." Hayes frowned. "I wish we had T'Pol to interpret some of this."

"What does it look like?" said Mathis.

"Um nonsense? I have no idea what this is supposed to be." said Hayes.

"She can look at the readings later once we get back." said Mathis. "Do you see an airlock to that ship?"

"No, it looks like every airlock has another ship attached to it." said Hayes. "We could always make a hole."

"No, the captain wants as few casualties as possible. And we might end up blowing Klaang into space if we started cutting holes in this thing."

Mathis steered the shuttlecraft around to the bottom of the ship, "Maybe there is a ventral airlock."

"Bingo!" said Hayes, "I see one!"

"Alright locking on." said Mathis. He brought the shuttlecraft perpendicular to the main ship and connected his aft airlock to the Suliban ship. There was a bumping noise and a series of lights turned green.

"We have a good lock." said Mathis. He turned to Hayes, "Go force it open."

Hayes turned in his seat and stood up in full power armor. He flipped his face plate down sealing the air. His HUD system confirmed that he had a good seal. He walked back past his security team of 8 people all in power armor, sitting in the back of the shuttlecraft. They stayed in their seats so he could more easily pass but stood up after him.

Hayes stepped over to the airlock and opened the doors for the shuttlecraft side to reveal the Suliban airlock. Hayes signaled one of his security team forward.

"Jones, check for lifesigns." said Hayes.

Jones put his hand out. The sensors built in to the suit fed information into his HUD and therefore everyone else's HUD. It showed two Suliban lifesigns on the other side of the airlock. It said that they were not in power armor but they did have spacesuits of some kind on. They were pointing weapons at the airlock. Jones looked back and held up two fingers to signify two threats in case his sensor wasn't passing that on to the others. Hayes nodded and Jones stepped back with his weapon ready.

Hayes pulled a isolinear chip out and slid it into a port in the airlock.

"Let's see is Sarin got this right." said Hayes.

The displays on the Suliban airlock changed colors and the airlock door dilated open. Hayes and one of the security team aimed through the airlock and fired a grenade into the lock. The grenade exploded on the other side of the airlock but instead of fire it made a bright flash and sprayed sticky cables everywhere. The two Suliban were thrown back and stuck to the walls, blinded by the flashes of the grenade.

Hayes said, "Watch the gravity shift" and leaped forward up and over into the Suliban deck following the shift in gravity 90 degrees. Jones went right after him.

Hayes said, "Clear!" after checking the room. The room had three doors and several cabinets filled with equipment. There was a repeating noise and a flashing light that seemed to be the Suliban version of an emergency signal.

Jones also reported, "Clear!" and the rest of the team came through the airlock in twos.

Mathis came through last and pressed a code on his suit to close the shuttlecraft doors. Two of the security team took the weapons away from the Suliban and checked to make sure they were still able to breathe. Woven into the fibers were several short range jammers that were blocking any communications from them. They checked to make sure that the jamming was working against their communications. They turned and nodded to Hayes.

Hayes turned to Mathis, "Looks like the grenades will work against regular crew just fine."

"That makes things easier." said Mathis.

Jones stood with his hand facing one of the doors. "I am detecting a Klingon lifesign this way sir."

Hayes said, "Beta Team - override control over these other doors and watch our exit. Alpha Team with us."

They turned to Jones again. Jones said, "No one in this corridor." Hayes nodded and moved up to open the door with the isolinear chip. They moved forward into the next section.

Jones moved forward and scanned the next door, "Two with power armor and one without in front of the room with Klaang."

He moved to the side of the door and pulled out another grenade. The rest of the team brought up their left arms and pressed a button. A physical shield unfolded out from their arm to look like a riot shield. Hayes moved to the other side and put in the isolinear chip.

The door opened and the two Suliban in power armor started firing immediately. The Starfleet Security Team held their ground against the fire.

Jones tossed in the grenade. One of the Suliban in power armor stepped between the grenade and the unarmored Suliban before it went off. The cables stuck to the armor but they were not strong enough to do more then hinder their armor.

Jones said, "Damn, no effect."

"All right," said Mathis. "Open up!"

The security team opened fire back at the Suliban. They were staggered back until one of them pressed a button on their arm and the security team's lasers stopped firing. The Suliban moved forward feeling safe now but stopped again when the security team brought up a secondary bullpup submachine gun and started firing. The plasma rounds were doing nearly as much damage as the lasers were. The Suliban in power armor fell over from too much damage.

The unarmored Suliban had run away down the corridor during the fire fight. Hayes signaled half his team to guard the intersection ahead and the other two with him and Mathis.

They forced open the door to find Klaang on a bed under restraints and two Suliban exiting the other door. Hayes and Mathis opened the restraints while the other two watched the doors.

"We are here to set you free." Mathis said using his Klingon translator.

"You are Humans from Enterprise?" said Klaang very groggy.

"Yes" said Mathis. He helped Klaang stand up and supported him.

"Why are you involved?" said Klaang.

"We were in the neighborhood. Now let's get moving." said Mathis.

"No! We must destroy the Temporal Chamber!" said Klaang.

"What?! We don't have time for this!" said Mathis.

"If we don't then they will just change the past to correct this event. We must get rid of their anchor to this time line so that they can't change it again." said Klaang.

"Damn it! So they can just go back to stop us before we rescue you?" said Mathis.

"Yes! Now we must go!" said Klaang. However he staggers some more and catches himself.

"Alright! Fine! But you are going back to the shuttlecraft. You are in no shape to fight." said Mathis. He switches channels, "Beta Team send two towards us to pick up Klaang and bring him back with to the shuttlecraft."

"Affirmative" came back over the comm.

Mathis turned to Hayes, "Slight change of plan. According to Klaang they have some sort of Temporal Chamber that would allow them to change this time line so all of this will be undone. We have to take it out in order to actually succeed at this."

"Great!" said Hayes. "Lead the way!"

They stepped out into the corridor and met with two from Beta Team. He turned to Klaang," They can take you back to the shuttlecraft. You can rest there while we go take out the time chamber."

"I can still fight! Give me a weapon!" said Klaang. "Just take my body back to my people!"

"Fine go guard the shuttlecraft so we can make it back. How about that?" said Mathis.

"I am strong enough to do that." said Klaang. Then he turned and left with Beta Team.

Mathis looked back at Klaang as he left, "How would you like to have a whole security team of those guys?"

Hayes shook his head, "It would be extremely intimidating and extremely frustrating at the same time."

"Alright let's go." said Mathis. Mathis turned in a circle with his hand up using the sensor on the suit.

"So what are we looking for?" said Hayes.

"You remember that weird signal that we picked up from outside?" said Mathis.

"Yes?" said Hayes.

"I'm going to find the room with it in it and shoot at it until it stops making that signal." said Mathis.

"Simple. Effective. I like it!" said Hayes.

Mathis pointed down one of the corridors and they moved forward. They stopped to exchange fire with a few Suliban but they were not in power armor and backed off quickly. The team started to move forward again when about 15 smaller creatures that were crawling on the walls, floors, and ceiling starting pouring around a corner. The team stopped and started firing at them.

"What the hell are these things?" yelled Hayes.

"Some sort of biological security drones?" said Mathis.

Several of the creatures died under the laser and plasma round fire but others just crawled over them.

"Maybe they are Suliban cats!" said Jones.

One of them got close enough and sprayed some sort of acid at Hayes legs. Hayes fired several burst into that one and stepped back to check his legs.

"Throw a cable grenade." said Mathis.

Jones stepped back and pulled a grenade. It automatically pulled data about enemy positions from his suit. Then he threw it. The cables sprayed in every direction except towards the security team. It pinned the creatures to the walls. That seemed to stop them for the moment.

Mathis turned and checked on Hayes. The acid was eating its way through the armor. Hayes pressed a couple of buttons and the leg plates fell off. Without the support of his leg armor the upper body armor was too heavy and they had to take all of it off him. He was sitting down in his undersuit.

"Great!" said Hayes.

"Well I'm glad you wore something underneath your armor." said Mathis.

"Uh Sir!" said Jones. They turned and looked back at the corridor. The creatures were still pinned against the walls and floor but they were spraying randomly trying to get out. It was filling up the corridor with acidic gas.

"Even better!" said Hayes.

"Does the foam grenade use a base?" said Mathis.

"I have no idea." said Jones.

"I think it does." said Hayes.

"Alright throw one and we will find another way around." said Mathis.

Jones pulled one out as Mathis helped Hayes up. Jones threw it down in the middle of the corridor.

Foam grenades were commonly used in boarding actions to seal off sections to prevent the enemy from coming down one corridor instead of another. They were a version of one of the foams that they use for damage control to seal off holes in the hull or interior spaces until you could get to it with a more permanent fix. It was fire proof, mostly weapon proof, and made a good vacuum seal. They didn't want this acid to eat a hole in this hull while they were running around inside it.

They tried to back up and find a way back towards the temporal chamber. They backed all the way to the shuttlecraft.

One of Beta team asked, "Did you find it?"

"No, we found cats instead." said Hayes.

"Cats?"

Jones said "Acid spitting Suliban cats."

Mathis thought about it for a moment and then hit the airlock door switch. "Let's hit it from the outside."

They got back into their seats. Mathis started the shuttlecraft up and disconnected from the complex.

Once they came around from underneath the complex they discovered that the Enterprise was firing back and forth with the complex.

"Shuttlecraft Drake to Enterprise" said Mathis. "Come in!"

"Enterprise here, what is your statis?" Hoshi's voice came over the comm.

"We have Klaang but we have another problem. Let me speak to the Captain." said Mathis.

"The Captain was injured during the attack. T'Pol has taken command." said Hoshi.

"What?! Is he alright?" said Mathis.

"The Doctor hasn't said anything yet." said Hoshi.

"Well okay, let me talk to T'Pol then." said Mathis.

"This is T'Pol. Are you ready to return to the ship?"

"I'm trying to make my way back without getting hit by either side, but I need you to hit a specific target. I need you to concentrate fire on the Temporal Chamber." said Mathis.

"There is no such thing as Time Travel, therefore there is no such thing as a Temporal Chamber." said T'Pol. "Bring your shuttlecraft into the docking bay immediately. We must leave."

"Klaang said that if we don't take it out then they will be able to go back in time and stop us. We need to take out that Temporal Chamber!" said Mathis. The shuttlecraft rocks with a hit.

"The Vulcan Science Directorate has concluded that there is no such thing as time travel. Your logic is flawed." said T'Pol.

There is something said in another language, then Hoshi says, "Sarin says that it is true! We must destroy it!"

"Sarin is trying to trick you all." said T'Pol. "Bring your shuttlecraft into the docking bay immediately."

Mathis thought for a minute, "I saw the Suliban charging up a powerful weapon that could destroy the Enterprise before we get away. We need to destroy it before it finishes charging!"

T'Pol said, "What is the coordinates of this weapon?"

Mathis turned to Hayes, "Send the coordinates of that weird energy reading we got earlier."

"You are a devious man" said Hayes.

The Enterprise fired on the Temporal Chamber causing a strange echoing explosion around the main ship. The shuttlecraft just made it behind the Enterprise before the concussion hit them. Once they were inside the Enterprise took off directly out of the gas giant.

**Enterprise Ready Room – 2 days later**

Archer and Mathis are seated.

Mathis said, "So then the High Chancellor seemed to be annoyed that we were involved, but I wasn't sure if that was because we were outsiders or if it had to do with the politics of the situation."

"Maybe he had some other agendas that he was going to take care of if it went to civil war." said Archer.

Mathis said. "Could be. Who knows. At least they seemed to be interested in what Sarin had to say. She was a big help. It was too bad she didn't have more time to talk with her, but she had more information for the Klingon High Council."

"We seem to have picked up a lot of help that I wasn't expecting." said Archer. The door chimed. "Speaking of which. Come in!"

Trip and T'Pol came in.

Archer said, "I've just gotten a response to the message I sent to Admiral Forrest. He enjoyed telling the Vulcan High Command about the Suliban we ran into. It isn't every day he gets to be the one dispensing information. I wanted you both to hear Starfleet's orders before I inform the crew."  
"Orders?" said Trip.  
Archer said to T'Pol, "Your people are sending a transport to pick you up."  
"I was under the impression that Enterprise would be taking me back to Earth." said T'Pol  
Archer said, "It would be a little out of our way. Admiral Forrest sees no reason why we shouldn't keep going."  
Trip and Mathis smiled at each other at that. Trip said, "Son of a bitch."  
Mathis said, "I have a feeling Doctor Phlox won't mind staying around for a while. He's developing a fondness for the human endocrine system."  
"I'll get double shifts on the repair work." said Trip.  
Archer said, "I think that outer hull's going to need a little patching up. Let's hope that's the last time somebody takes a shot at us."  
"Let's hope." said Trip and he leaves.  
"T'Pol, would you stick around for a minute?" said Archer. "Ever since I can remember, I've seen Vulcans as an obstacle, always keeping us from standing on our own two feet."

T'Pol said, "I understand."

"No, I don't think you do. If I'm going to pull this off, there are a few things I have to leave behind. Things like preconceptions, holding grudges. This mission would've failed without your help." said Archer.

T'Pol said, "I won't dispute that."  
"I was thinking. A Vulcan Science Officer could come in handy, but if I asked you to stay it might look like I wasn't ready to do this on my own. " said Archer  
T'Pol said, "Perhaps you should add pride to your list."

Archer grinned and looked over at Mathis. Then turned back to her and nodded, "Perhaps I should."  
T'Pol said, "It might be best if I were to contact my superiors and make the request myself. With your permission."  
"Permission granted."

Mathis and Archer watch T'Pol leave.

Mathis said, "Do you think she will fit in?"

"I think that we need to try if we are going to make this mission work." said Archer. "Though I heard about how you tricked her into firing on the Temporal Chamber. Nicely done."

Mathis said, "Well it wasn't so much of a trick as I gave her something that she could deal with. She was getting locked up logically about the subject of Time Travel. Once it was just a Tactical matter it was no longer an issue." Mathis smiled.

"Well it seemed to work. I guess we need to get out there and tell the crew." said Archer. He started to get up and stopped to hold his side. Mathis stood up and helped him up.

"How are you feeling there Captain?" said Mathis.

"I'm okay. Dr. Philox wanted to keep me in sickbay longer but I'm just sore at this point." said Archer.

Archer stood up and straightened his uniform. "Alright let's do this."

**Enterprise Bridge**

Mathis and Archer enter the bridge from the ready room. T'Pol, Hoshi, Travis, Reed, and Rostov are at their posts.

Archer goes to his seat and sits down. He nods to Hoshi, "All Hands Call"

A whistle comes over the intercom, "I hope no one is in a hurry to get home. Starfleet seems to think that we are ready to begin our mission. We are starting off with checking in with some of the colonies we sent out over the years. They came out only able to go into the Alpha and Beta bands so we will be catching up with them quickly.

Once we pass the colonies we will be making history with every parsec we travel. Our mandate is to seek out new life and new civilizations and initiate first contact with them. We will go boldly where no man has gone before."

  
  



	2. Pacifica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Enterprise gets a distress call from one of the colonial motherships humanity sent out several years ago.

Alt Trek Enterprise

Pacifica

  **In Hyperspace**

The Enterprise is resting stationary in the fourth level of Hyperspace, the so called Delta Band. It is in a wide orbit of a Blue star. There are no planets in Hyperspace, only stars and a few other gravitic anomalies. Behind the Enterprise, floating in Hyperspace is a Communications Buoy. Two small workpods are floating around it. They are very small one person craft with thrusters and waldo arms. They were just finishing maneuvering the Buoy.

"Powering up now!" said Rostov, the operations officer on the Enterprise in the first workpod.

Lights and diagnostic routines lit up along the relay.

They heard Hoshi Sato, the Enterprise communications officer say, "Starting Echo network diagnostics. Sending test signal to Earth."

"How long will it take them to get that signal?" asked Cmd Tucker, the Enterprise Chief Engineer, who was floating in the second one.

"It's 15 light-years so they should get the test signal in about 13 hours, give or take. We should get the response tonight." said Hoshi.

Rostov said, "Did the other buoys confirm connection?"

"Hold on," said Hoshi. "Gamma band buoy's signal is strong but the Beta band buoy is not responding."

"Damn it! Are we going to have to replace all of the buoys laid down by the Pacifica? I was hoping we could skip at least a few of them." said Tucker.

"I don't think that they were shielded enough when they were put together. Nobody knew how much radiation there was in parts of hyperspace." said Rostov.

"Yeah, but it's more work for us." said Tucker. "This one is fully deployed. Tell them down in Engineering to ready a replacement for the Beta Band and possibly for the Alpha band AND normal space. This is getting tedious. We are coming back in." Tucker turned his workpod back towards the Enterprise.

Rostov followed.

They made it into the cargo bay. It was laid out fairly wide and running from the middle to the aft end of the secondary hull. There was a runway that goes forward into the cargo area and heavy machine shop. Shuttlecraft were set on either side. They pulled into a smaller set of bays above the shuttlecraft bays. They closed the main shuttlebay doors.

"Tucker to Bridge. We're in." said Tucker.

"Acknowledged," said Commander Mathis on the bridge.

**On the Bridge:**

"Charge Jump Point Generator. Set for Beta Band this time." said Mathis.

Generator charged for Beta band." said Lt. Joseph, standing in on Operations for Rostov.

"Initiate Jump Point." said Captain Archer.

A gravitic pulse from the Jump Point Generator punched a hole from one level of hyperspace to another. A swirling tunnel of energy formed the wormhole between the realms.

"Enter jump point." said Archer.

Lt. Mayweather said, "Aye sir."

The Enterprise moved into the swirling tunnel and came out in another realm but analogous to the same place in space. They turned the ship around and scanned the older communications buoy that had been left behind by the Earth Mothership Pacifica.

Archer said, "Hoshi?"

Hoshi started trying to access the buoy. "Hold on, I've got basic access. There seems to be some errors in the operating system. We will need to swap out for the more shielded systems on this one too. I'm going to wipe this one and upload a newer OS."

Archer pressed a button on his wrist, "Bridge to Tucker, Go out and upgrade the shielding on this one too."

Tucker said, "Joy!"

"I've got the new OS installed and I have access to it's data." said Hoshi.

"That was fast," said Mathis.

"The OS for a comm buoy is extremely simple. It doesn't need much in the way of..." Hoshi became distracted by her panel.

Archer stood up, "Hoshi, you okay?"

"Sir you might want to look at this." said Hoshi.

"Main viewer," said Archer.

Hoshi touched a few buttons and the view of the communications buoy was replaced with the picture of a human admiral. "This is Admiral Serrano of the Mothership Pacifica. We have encountered a hostile species in system J25 in sector 22. There seems to be a problem with the Echo network so I don't know how long this will take for another human vessel to receive this message but be advised that there is a hostile species here with some fairly advanced technology. We have not been able to translate their language as of yet. Avoid this system. I will send another update as I am able to. Admiral Serrano of the Pacifica out."

Everyone looked at each other quietly for a moment.

"How long ago was that sent?" asked Archer.

Hoshi said, "Three days ago."

Archer said, "Set course for system J25, maximum speed."

T'Pol said, "Setting course for system J25."

Mathis said, "Charge Jump Point Generator for Delta Band"

Lt. Joseph said, "Charging"

Mathis touched his wrist comm, "Bridge to Tucker, You two better get inside and back to your stations. We have a situation."

"Everything okay up there?" said Tucker

"No, someone attacked the Pacifica." said Mathis.

"On our way." said Tucker, subdued.

Mayweather said, "Course laid in."

Joseph said, "Jump point generator charged."

Archer said, "Initiate jump point."

The Enterprise jumped into a higher level of hyperspace and took off.

**The next day:**

Archer came on to the bridge. Mathis stood up and let him sit down.

Archer said, "What do we have?"

T'Pol said, "We are approaching system J25."

Mathis said, "Do you want us to come in close or farther out and take a look?"

Archer said, "Farther out. Let's see what we have here."

Mathis turned to Travis, "Bring us out at 20 AU from the star."

"Aye Sir" said Mayweather. He turned to his station and adjusted his course.

"I've got a signal from the Beta band. It's the J25 comm relay." Said Hoshi. "Do you want me to initiate contact?"

"Yes, see if you can raise the Pacifica." said Archer.

Hoshi said, "I have a connection. Raising the Pacifica."

Reed said, "Let's hope they are still there."

Hoshi said, "Enterprise to Pacifica, come in please."

A voice came over the comm system, "Enterprise, this is Pacifica. We read you. How far out are you?"

Archer looked over at T'Pol. She said, "Approximately 212.3 light minutes."

Archer grinned and mouthed Approximately? Then he said, "We are about 210 light minutes out. What is your situation?"

The voice came back, "210 light minutes? I don't see you on any of our sensors. Are you coming in under stealth?"

"No, we are coming in through the Delta band." said Archer.

"Delta Band?! of Hyperspace? I didn't know that we had anything that had made it into the Delta Band, much less a starship!" said the voice.

"Who are you talking to?" said another voice over the comm.

"It's the Enterprise, sir. They are in the Delta Band!" said the first voice.

Most of the bridge crew was grinning at this point, except for T'Pol of course.

"Give me that!" said the second voice. "This is the Mothership Pacifica. Identify yourself."

Archer said, "This is Captain Johnathan Archer of the starship Enterprise. We have come from Earth to reconnect with the colonies. We received a message in the Echo network about a hostile species. Are you in danger?"

"This is Admiral Serrano, captain, it's good to hear your voice, though I didn't expect help this quickly. We could use some extra fire power. What kind of ships do you have with you?"

"We are just a single light cruiser. We are not a part of a fleet. We are with Starfleet and we are here to reestablish communications." said Archer.

"What is Starfleet?" said Serrano.

"It's an exploratory organization. It was put together a few years after you left." said Archer.

"They set up an exploratory organization AFTER the mother ships leave? What the hell kind of logic does that make? Well you might as well join us. One light cruiser won't make much of a difference, unless you have some new weapons to go with that new hyperdrive." said Serrano.

"No, we only have moderate weapons for our size. Like I said we are an exploratory vessel - not a combat vessel." said Archer.

"Well Hadley here will send you a map of the system. Just come in and we will talk. I need to direct a recovery operation." said Serrano, "Serrano out."

Archer looked over at Mathis with his eyebrows high.

Hoshi said, "Receiving the data. Transferring it to navigation."

"Set course for the Mothership." said Archer. He looked over at Mathis and grinned. "Why do I feel like I'm in some scifi movie after I say that?"

Mathis laughed. Then his face became serious and he leaned closer to Archer, "How far into this are you planning to get?"

"Well I'm not going in guns blazing if that is what you are asking." said Archer.

"You and I know that but what about the Admiral. He may not pay attention to the fact that we are in different services. He may just see Admiral and Captain and not think about it past that." said Mathis quietly. "Plus some of the military came right out of the Fusion Wars. They may still have some old feelings against Earth."

"That is why I plan to keep him at arms length." said Archer. "If he gets on board then he may decide to take what he wants but he won't want to fire on a human vessel, especially out here."

"If nothing else we are a lot faster then he is." said Mathis.

Mayweather said, "Slowing for jump point entry."

Rostov said, "Jump engines charged."

"Initiate jump point." said Archer. "Is the area clear?" He looked over at Reed.

Reed checked his sensors, "There is a ship near the jump point. It looks like a Battleship, moderate damage. It is scanning the jump point."

"Hmm ... I don't like this." said Archer. "Scan the system."

Reed checked his sensors and adjusted them on various object he was picking up. He put up a tactical display to the right of the main viewer. "I am picking up several ships with moderate to serious damage in this area. There is more debris towards the inner system. I am also picking up another fleet of ships around the third planet. I don't recognize their configuration."

Archer looked over at T'Pol. "Do you recognize these ships?"

T'Pol checked her sensor readings, "I don't have a full database for ship recognition but accounting for our location I believe these to be Bolian ships."

"Are they usually aggressive?" said Archer.

"No they are not." said T'Pol. "Our encounters with them have always been peaceful."

"Is this one of their colonies?" asked Mathis.

"I do not know." said T'Pol.

"Maybe that is why they are acting this way." said Mathis.

"Could be." said Archer.

An alarm came from Reed's panel. "Captain! They are targeting weapons at the jump point!"

"Close the Jump Point!" said Archer.

They looked at each other and relaxed.

Mathis said, "At least they can't reach us here."

"Sir! I'm detecting a jump point forming!" said Reed.

"You had to say something." said Archer.

A single ship came through the jump point.

"It's a Bolian ship." said T'Pol in a calm voice. It sounded less reassuring than mocking at that point.

"Hail them." said Archer.

The main viewer switched to a picture of a very blue skinned humanoid. It had a ridge from the top of his bald head to the bottom of his chin. He said something.

Archer said, "Greetings. I am Captain Archer of the starship Enterprise. We were hoping to talk with you and see if we could work out the difficulties you have been having with the Pacifica."

The Bolian looked like he did not understand. He looked off to the side and spoke to someone else.

Archer turned to T'Pol, "You said that your people have encountered Bolians before. Do you have their linguistic database?"

"It was not relevant to the original mission I was sent on so no I do not." said T'Pol.

Hoshi said, "What about Rigelian? If they are the traders that they make themselves out to be then it may work as a trade language."

Archer said, "Try it out."

Hoshi touched some controls on her panel, "I am repeating your greeting in Rigelian."

The Bolian on the screen smiled and nodded, "Yes, we have been trying to prevent them from landing on the planet. We have been have a great deal of difficulty communicating with them and they do not stop their approaches." The translation was written in subtitles along the bottom of the screen.

"I'm sorry that there has been so many difficulties." said Archer through the translation. "Is this planet a colony of yours?"

"No, it is a protected planet." said the Bolian.

"Protected planet? I don't understand. What do you mean a protected planet." said Archer.

The Bolian thought about it for a moment. "It contains weaker technologies then we have and we want to keep them safe."

"Weaker technologies? Oh, are you studying them?" said Archer, understanding them. "They have a more primitive technological level and you are keeping others from interfering with their development."

"Yes. It is one of our highest directives when dealing with other species." said the Bolian smiling.

"Okay, I will see if I can make the people in the other ship leave you alone." said Archer.

"Oh no, we don't want to be left alone. We want to contact your people. We don't want your people to scare or confuse the Parvex." said the Bolian. "I am called Korvin Rixx."

"We would love to learn about your people as well Mr. Rixx." said Archer. "Maybe we can meet with each other face to face once we make the Pacifica understand that they need to leave the planet alone."

"That would be an excellent opportunity." said Rixx. "May we trade linguistic information so that we can learn more about each other?"

"Yes. We will prepare one and send it before we leave the system." said Archer.

"We will go back to normal space and monitor communications." said Rixx.

"Talk with you later" said Archer.

The screen switched back to a view of the Bolian Ship.

Mathis said, "Well that turned out well."

"As I said, our dealings have always been peaceful." said T'Pol.

"So the Admiral must have pushed them into a corner." said Mathis.

"Yeah, I can't see Admiral Serrano doing that." Archer said sarcastically.

T'Pol looked confused, "I believe there is ample evidence of his behavior to support that theory."

Archer and Mathis looked at her for a moment.

Then Mathis turned to Archer, "Do you think that he will believe us?"

"Maybe," said Archer.

"Do you want to meet him on his terms or ours?" said Mathis.

"After that incident with the Battleship? I think that we can talk through the comm relay to start with." said Archer.

Mathis looked over at Rostov, "Charge jump generators for Beta Entry."

"Charging" said Rostov.

"What do we do if they don't listen?" said Mathis.

Archer looked at the screen and didn't have an answer.

"Jump point generator ready." said Rostov.

"Initiate Jump Point." said Archer. "Scan for activity"

T'Pol said, "I detect no activity in the Beta band near the jump point."

"Jump" said Archer.

The Enterprise moved through the Jump Point from the Delta band to the Beta band of hyperspace.

"Establish contact with the Pacifica." Archer said to Hoshi.

"Contact established," said Hoshi. "Admiral Serrano on sir."

The Admiral looked out of the main viewer and started yelling immediately, "What the hell have you been doing!? I told you to come over to the Pacifica! That meant right now!"

"I'm sorry Admiral, there seems to be a misunderstanding. We don't answer to you. We answer to Starfleet Command which is an organization that you are not a part of if you remember commenting on not knowing what it was in our last conversation." said Archer. He took a deep breath, "Now I have some information that could solve your problems if you will listen for a moment."

Admiral Serrano blinked a few times as he processed that information and tried to change mental gears. Before he got his focus back the screen changed and another face appeared.

"Captain Archer! My name is Daniel Kincaid. I am the Administrator for this Colony. I'm sorry that I was unavailable to speak with you earlier. I understand that you have some information for me?" said Kincaid.

Archer grinned, "Yes, I was just telling the Admiral that."

"Oh don't worry about him. I'm the Administrator of this colony. He was just our ride. Now what kind of information did you have?" said Kincaid.

The main viewer became static.

Archer looked over at Hoshi, "Can you get them back?"

"Actually we have them both but they are trying to override each others channel." Hoshi said with a grin.

Archer sighed, "Can you get them both on separate channels and split the screen?"

Hoshi said, "Yes sir."

The screen resolved with the Admiral on the left and the Administrator on the right. They looked up from trying to manipulate the signal. Both said, "Captain Archer!" at the same time.

Archer held up his hand for silence, "I have made contact with the Bolians ..."

"Bolians?" "How do you know..."

Archer held up his hand again, "The Vulcans have already made contact with them in the past and we have a database of a language that we both have access to. It's a trade language called Rigelian. We were able to communicate with them and find out what is going on."

"They are here to protect the colony from any outside interference. There is a race down there called the Parvex that they are protecting. The Bolians want to establish communications with us but they won't allow anyone to land on the planet." said Archer.

Kincaid said, "The Parvex" as if he was tasting the word in his mouth. "What do you know about these Parvex?"

"Nothing, except that they are a low tech culture." said Archer.

"Interesting. This can be a gold mine. Think of the anthropological studies that can be made, the biological studies! An entire ecosystem to explore that developed it's own sentient race! This will be a huge boon for science!" Kincaid was getting really excited.

Archer said, "I don't think you understand..."

Serrano said, "So these Bolians don't want anyone to land on the planet? I still don't follow why."

"They protect other races that they find that are at a lower tech level. It is some sort of cultural prime directive of theirs. They didn't explain why they do this but we can ask them. We are trying to set to meet again with them to trade linguistic databases and get to know them. We might even see if they can give us a map of the area for other viable colony sites." said Archer.

Serrano seemed very interested, "That would be extremely helpful. We only have the information from our telescopes until we send a scout into a system. If we had a map with the local political boundaries it would make things a lot easier in the future."

"What do you think Administrator?" asked Archer.

Kincaid looked up and waved his hand, "Maps? Sure that would be great. You two get right on that. I've got some work to do." and he left the conference call.

Archer asked, "Is he always like this?"

Serrano said, "Oh him. I'll deal with him later. Now what can you tell me about this Starfleet. I thought that I was going to be on the edge of discovery out here but that changed a lot quicker than I thought it would."

Archer smiled. "I'm sure Starfleet would be glad to have you."

Archer had the Enterprise come out of Hyperspace after getting to know the Admiral. For his part the Admiral apologized for the incident with the Battleship earlier.

**Several hours later:**

On the Bridge of the Enterprise, Mathis had the con with Archer coming out of his ready room with the Admiral.

Serrano said, "This is a fine ship. I can see they've been busy back at Earth, though I still think that it is odd to have a science vessel this size. I am more used to smaller scout ships, but I can see the logic behind a light cruiser being used this way. So does Starfleet have anything larger?"

"They are setting up Battleships and more military type vessels as system defense craft in case we meet anything really dangerous." said Archer. "Most of them at this point are older Earth Force vessels being refit with the new Delta class Hyperdrives and gravitic tech. Once the Echo network connects all the colonies we should be able to get a defense force out to any colony in a few days."

"That is amazing. It took us several years to get out this far. We though that we were going to be mostly cut off from the rest of humanity for decades at a time. Now this!" said Serrano. "It is truly amazing."

A beep caught the attention of Lt. Reed at Tactical. He checked it, "Sir, we have a colony shuttlecraft leaving the Pacifica. It is headed for the Parvex home world."

"What?" said Archer. "Mayweather pursue."

"Aye sir!" said Mayweather. "That should be easy."

"Who let that shuttle launch?" said Serrano. "I need communications!"

Archer turned to Hoshi, "Please contact the Pacifica for the Admiral."

Hoshi pressed her panel, "You are on Admiral."

The main viewer switched to a view of a communications officer from the Pacifica, "Admiral"

"Jones! Who let that shuttlecraft leave?" yelled Serrano.

"The Administrator did." said Jones.

"Kincaid! Why did you let him?" yelled Serrano.

"Jones kind of shrugged, "He has the authority to do it. I wasn't told that he wasn't allowed to."

"Damn it!" yelled Serrano. He looked at Hoshi, "Shut him off!"

Hoshi closed the channel.

"We are along side the shuttlecraft." said Mayweather.

"Get a tractor beam on that shuttle." said Archer.

"Aye Sir," said Reed. "We have them."

"Hail them," said Archer.

Hoshi touched her panel, "Hailing...I'm getting the automated transponder but no open channel."

T'Pol said, "I am reading 56 humans on board including 14 children."

"Children!" said Archer.

"Damn it! What does he think he is doing?!" yelled Serrano.

Reed said, "A Bolian ship is coming up to intercept."

Serrano said, "He was going to cause a further diplomatic incident with the Bolians and get themselves killed in the process."

T'Pol said, "I am reading a build up in the inertial compensators for the shuttlecraft."

"Is he trying to break free?" asked Archer.

"He doesn't have nearly the power to do so with that shuttlecraft." said Rostov. "Especially with our newer power systems."

"T'Pol said, "The inertial compensators are reaching a critical state. If they do not shut down their engines soon they will destroy themselves in the process."

"Damn it!" said Archer. "Release them."

"The shuttlecraft is away," said Reed.

Archer sat back and thought for a moment, "Can we take out their engines without hurting the passengers?"

Reed nodded no, "With that type of shuttle it would be too chancy. If we used a heavy enough laser to cut through the thruster bell then it would likely cut through the whole shuttlecraft. If we hit the fuel area then it would explode."

"Too bad we can't just teleport them all off." said Hoshi.

T'Pol raised her eyebrow, "I assume you are referring to Quantum Teleportation. However that is not possible on a large scale."

"I was reading that they were making some progress in trying to adapt it to large scale by compressing a person's molecules into a data stream." said Hoshi.

"I'm not sure that I am ready to have my molecules compressed into a data stream." said Reed.

"Alright people let's focus on what is possible." said Archer.

Rostov said, "Why not use the compensators from the Enterprise. We grab them again with the tractor beam and pull them up against the ship. They we use our inertial field to augment theirs. The outer field wins in this kind of thing so no matter how much they fire their engines our compensators will negate it. The most he will be able to do is make some burn marks on the outer hull."

"Great thinking Lieutenant!" said Archer. "Helm bring us above them and close. Reed grab them with the tractor beam. Rostov extend our inertial field."

Reed said, "We got them. Bringing them against the hull."

There was a loud bump that rang through the hull.

"You scratched the paint!" said Archer.

"Sorry sir." said Reed.

"We have them in the inertial field." said Rostov. "They are not going anywhere."

"Sir, the Bolians are here." said Mayweather.

"All stop," said Archer. "Rostov, be careful with the inertial shift here."

"They are hailing us," said Hoshi.

"On screen, tie in the Rigelian translator." said Archer.

"Done," said Hoshi.

Korvin Rixx appeared on the screen. Through the translator, "Greetings. Is there a problem?"

Archer said, "No, not everyone got the memo that the planet was off limits. We will take care of them."

"Very good. I have a linguistic database ready for you." said Rixx.

"Please send it. We are working on our own but we can send you a partial one." said Archer.

"That would be good. Thank you." said Rixx.

"We will contact you in a few hours so that we can meet once we take care of this situation." said Archer.

"That would be acceptable." said Rixx.

Archer looked over at Hoshi. She said, "Transmissions complete. I've got half of the science department working on our database. It should be ready on time."

Archer looked back at the screen, "We will talk again later."

"Thank you" said Rixx and the channel closed.

Admiral Serrano said, "I had no idea that they were such nice people."

Archer looked over at him and smiled, "You would be surprised at the help you can get out here."

**Two days later:**

Captain's Log: June 24th, 2645. Starfleet has agreed to take the Pacifica into the fleet. They are upgrading their hyperdrive systems and inertial compensators now. Then they will be on their way to a new planet that the Bolians promise would make a great colony. They also have the new designs for the Echo relays so we won't have to replace theirs anymore.

I am told that Mr. Kincaid has lost his rank and is in their brig for several months for endangering the lives of his colonists. He apparently thought that the Bolians would not fire on the shuttle if it has children. We checked with the Bolians and he was horrified to learn that the Bolians sensors were not that good when it comes to life signs of non-Bolians.

We have finally been able to communicate directly to the Bolians in their own language. Hoshi says that she really enjoys it and the Bolians have been speaking a fair amount of English around us as well. They are an interesting and kind people. With the blessings of Starfleet we are setting up some communications protocols in the Echo network for the Bolians to contact us in the future.

We are getting a tour from the Bolians about what they have learned about the Parvex. I guess we are lucky that the Parvex don't have telescopes at this point.

We will be staying for at least a couple of weeks and then we will cross over to the travel path of the Atlantica Mothership and start checking out the Echo network in that direction. After that we will be headed spinward. The Bolian map lists a group out in that direction called the Romulans. I wonder if they are nice people.

 


End file.
